The foundation was formed in memory of Michael Hirschbeck, son of major league baseball umpire John and Denise Hirschbeck, who lost his battle with Adrenoleukodystrophy (ALD) on April 8, 2014. The mission of the Magic of Michael Foundation is to inspire, empower and provide hope to families enduring the “curve balls” of life. I made these cookies for their 2nd annual dinner and golf outing, a fundraiser for various causes important to the Hirschbeck family.

Thanks so much, Michelle, for asking me to be a part of this wonderful event!

So the phenomena of the “cobbler’s children have no shoes” is definitely a theme in our house this birthday season. In case you’re not familiar, the saying refers to someone who is so successful at something they don’t have time to provide that same service to his/her own family. I guess one could extrapolate it to “the baker’s children don’t get cool birthday cakes.”

So, anyway, my daughter’s birthday rolled around a few weeks ago and I was swamped with orders. On the day of the party, we awoke and frantically tried to figure out a cake that would be easy, fast, and fun for her celebration at the pool…

This is what we came up with. She really liked the idea of an unconventional shape (a half sheet cut into fourths and stacked high), and I liked the fact that I could slice and serve it easily.

The cake was vanilla birthday cake flavor with multi-colored sprinkles folded into the batter. The filling was blue (her favorite color) buttercream sandwiched between each of the 4 layers. The effect of melted candles I did using melted white chocolate ganache pooled and drizzled over the edge of the cake. The melting ice cream cones were added to the top to give the cake some more height.

Keeping with the ice cream cone theme, the mini ice cream cones are rainbow cake pops dipped into white-then-blue melted white chocolate and sprinkled with nonpareils and a topped with a red candy “cherry.” Hannah and I made them after watching this great tutorial by Cookies Cups and Cardio. (I wish I would have taken a picture of them with a bite taken out!)

We also made cookies in the summer pool party theme…

Despite the obsessive planning I typically do weeks in advance for most of our birthday parties, we were able to pull this one off in 1 day with minimal effort. Most importantly, the kids all had a great time.

It’s so nice to have a child who’s finally old enough to help with the decision-making and execution of her own party treats…especially one who’s always ready and willing to help.

Like this:

I must admit that when I was asked to make Kate Spade-themed cookies, I had to look it up. I’m not much into fashion and didn’t know who Kate Spake was or the style of her clothes (she’s a fashion designer, in case you didn’t know either). But once I got into it, I really liked the styles and enjoyed designing the cookies.

For the cookie platter, I went with assorted cutouts decorated in black, white, and hot pink royal icing with dots, stripes and gold accents.

I loved the way the swirl rosettes turned out. I piped them with a Wilton 1M tip and really stiff royal icing.

This cookie assortment was ordered by a sweet grand-daughter for her grandmother’s 80th birthday. Her mom picked them up and flew with them all the way to Florida, much to Grandma Corinne’s surprise. It was really neat to be a part of such a special celebration!

Loved making this cake and cookie combo for a sweet little girl who turned 6 this past weekend…her party theme was Disney Descendants.

I must admit I didn’t know much about the Descendants movie and characters until I did a Descendants cake for Gianna last year .

Arianna’s cake was a 2-layer, 10″ square sour cream vanilla and double chocolate cake, iced with vanilla bean buttercream. The details are a combo of homemade marshmallow fondant and royal icing.

I piped the heart, crown and Maleficent horns onto waxed paper and let them dry overnight, then transferred them to the iced cake….it was infinitely easier than cutting those small details out of fondant… The lettering , mirror, and apple were hand cut from fondant.

The cookies I did in 3 different designs to match the cake…

Happy birthday, Arianna! Hope you had a great one…I sure enjoyed making your treats! :0)

Like this:

It’s time for school colors and graduation caps! These cute cutout cookies I made as a mail order for a graduate in Arizona who’s school colors are yellow and black. Not sure of the school name, but it’s acronym is “BPHS”…

They are very similar to the cookies I made for a Cardinal Mooney grad last year….

Congrats to all the graduates out there…you’ve worked hard for this, ENJOY!

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About Me

Life is crazy and I love to bake. I'm a wife, mother of 3 nutty kids, and an admitted sugar-holic. Ten years ago I left my job as a senior consulting engineer in Salt Lake City, UT, to get out of the rat race and raise kids. We up and moved to a quiet, small town in NE Ohio to be near family and bought a 180-yr-old historic home, always a dream of mine. Along the way, I discovered my joy of baking, which allows both my engineering side and my oft-suppressed creative side to emerge. It began with the desire to bake birthday cakes for my kids (I hated to buy them) and has blossomed into a cupcake-baking business for a local bakery. Over the years, many people have asked if I take orders. So, here they are. Check out the site, we'll be adding new cupcake flavors weekly as well as the occasional cake. And in case you're wondering about the name, it's an homage to the big, old gray barn in my back yard. What a bonus, it came with the house! Put on a smile and BAKE!